Tomorrow, Eastern Navajo Diné Against Uranium Mining, with the help of the New Mexico Environmental Law Center, will submit a petition to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights arguing that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's decision to grant Hydro Resources Inc., a license to mine uranium ore near Churchrock and Crown Point, N.M., is a violation of international laws.

The groups contend the mines, first permitted by NRC in 1999, could contaminate drinking water for 15,000 Navajo residents in and around the two communities, which lie just outside the Navajo Nation. In 2005, the Navajo's tribal government passed a law prohibiting uranium mining within its borders.

"By its acts and omissions that have contaminated and will continue to contaminate natural resources in the Dine communities of Crownpoint and Church Rock, the State has violated Petitioners' human rights and breached its obligations under the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man," the petition reads.

"We're very hopeful," said Eric Jantz, an attorney with the New Mexico Environmental Law Center who is filing the petition on behalf of ENDAUM. "I think we have very solid claims. It's always been our client's position that clean water is a human right."

The United Nations also recognizes clean water as a human right, he added.

The groups cannot take their case to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, which is separate from the commission, because the United States does not recognize the international court's jurisdiction, Jantz said.

ENDAUM and the law center are hoping the commission will put pressure on the NRC and State Department to reverse the licensing decision.

The Navajo Nation is still suffering the aftermath of previous uranium mining, which left hundreds of abandoned mines and myriad health problems for Navajo people, including high rates of cancer, heart disease and birth defects.

Former Navajo mine workers who removed uranium ore during the 1950s and '60s to feed the buildup of the nation's Cold War nuclear arsenal continue to seek workers' compensation and health care assistance. Just last month, Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) reintroduced the "Radiation Exposure Compensation Act," which would allow more of those former workers to receive restitution.

"Residents already have to live with radiation and heavy metals," Jantz said. The cleanup of abandoned mines from the last uranium boom is still in progress. Most recently, Canadian firm Rio Algom Mining agreed to a $2.5 million cleanup of two uranium-contaminated sites on the Navajo and Hopi reservations in New Mexico and Arizona.

Raising case's profile

In addition to compelling NRC to reconsider the license for the new mines, the groups hope to raise the profile of their case internationally and drive home the point that uranium mining is a human rights issue as well as an environmental one, Jantz added.

Officials with NRC declined to comment on the petition, saying they had not seen the document. They also refused to comment on the groups' decision to challenge the license in an international forum.

Mat Lueras, vice president of corporate development for Uranium Resources Inc., Hydro Resources' parent firm, said the company had not heard about the petition and also declined comment. URI hopes to open the first New Mexico mine in 2013, according to company officials.

Last March, a three-judge panel of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver ruled that NRC had adequately considered the potential effects of the project in its analysis and included adequate environmental safeguards (Land Letter, Sept. 23, 2010).

But critics of NRC's licensing of Hydro Resources' New Mexico mines argued the agency should have evaluated radiation emissions from existing waste piles in the area, including tailings left from past uranium mining dating back decades. They also argue that NRC failed to require sufficient protections for groundwater from the new mines.